Our client is a global provider of information technology services, offers storage, IoT, IT operation and data management, analytics, video intelligence, and multi-cloud acceleration solutions.
As we are all too aware, there has been a shift in the workplace in the last few years which has resulted in many organizations embracing remote and hybrid work models for business continuity and workforce well-being. In consequence, it has become abundantly clear for leadership teams that successful communication in the ‘new way of work’ must evolve to accommodate the following:
1. Compatibility with asynchronous work spread across multiple continents and/or time zones,
2. Modern communication formats that can reach employees right where they collaborate; and,
3. Ease of use as a large portion of the workforce has been with the company for less than a year.
Now anyone can work from almost anywhere that has a decent internet connection. Untethered from the physical restrictions of the office, organizations have been heavily investing into digital workplace solutions to enable communication and collaborate across multiple time zones, locations, and continents. Although remote work technology has been commercially available for nearly a decade, the demand and speed at which adoption has taken place over the past two years has left many employees feeling overwhelmed by digital clutter and inefficient tooling.
In consequence, many organizations have been adapting and moving their communication and collaboration, at least in part, out of email and into Microsoft Teams.
Along with changing working environments comes a rapidly changing employee base spurred largely by the Great Resignation. Many of the organizations that we work with are reporting that a large portion of the staff has been with the company for less than a year. We are seeing a constant flow of more and more new hires across all industries and services.
And what a better time to look to look for a solution to pave a way forward through these uncertain times.
Our team has been fortunate in being able to support our client with the pilot of the Microsoft Teams Enhanced Company Communicator application over the past few months.
The Enhanced Company Communicator app is the ideal solution for announcements and team broadcasts to engage your organization. Messages can be used to share important updates, special announcements, and links to staff surveys without having to send a single email to your team.
The key to the Enhanced Company Communicator app is understanding how people work. There has been a culture change in terms of the method that we utilize to communicate, specifically with less email and more real time messaging. Employees are asking management to meet them where they spend a large part of their working time. Every day we are sent many messages and sometimes those important messages will get lost with everything that requires our attention.
There was an opportunity to make this process easier for communication and leadership teams to reach out and share these important messages with their staff.
We wanted to build an app that has seamless integration into the places staff are already working - inside Microsoft Teams. The Enhanced Company Communicator app offers an opportunity to reach your audience where they are.
We took the existing Company Communicator app and enhanced it further to address some of the gaps that were missing. We embraced the best-in-class patterns that we all know and love already in Microsoft Teams. On top of that foundation, we built new functionality to help streamline the publishing process and improve the user experience. Enhanced Image Selection Custom Scheduling were built into the company communicator making it easier than ever to create your own custom messages. The app provides an easy interface for designated user to create, preview, collaborate, and send their messages. We used the power of bots inside Microsoft Teams to automate and distribute those messages seamlessly across business channels.
Create and craft messages your way
It’s as simple as adding a title, picking your image, defining your message, and adding a call to action. In a few clicks, the Company Communicator app allows you to craft a message either from scratch or even from a set template.
The Communicator selects the ‘Browse’ button.
The required image file is located within the desktop file explorer.
Once selected, a preview of the image appears in the ‘New Message’ panel.
Define where and when your message will go out
Scheduling and automating your messages to have them distributed at the right time with your team while you focus on other tasks.
With the Enhanced Company Communicator app, messages are shared directly inside Microsoft Teams chats or channels ensuring those important messages are not missed.
After selecting the intended audience, the Communicator can indicate the date and time for the message to be sent.
Communicators can track the success of their announcements by analyzing the number of employees who have viewed their message, replied, or even reacted to it. The Enhanced Company Communicator allows you to boost your productivity, work smarter, connect the right people with the right information within Microsoft Teams.
While it may be easy to assume that our work is done our journey together has only just begun. We have commenced the next phase of enhancements: message analytics. It is our intention to capture message analytics (e.g., Total views, reach, popularity, and failure rate) and present them within a custom PowerBI dashboard. We believe that this approach will be essential in both capturing the success metrics of messages and providing a clear line of sight into which features/enhancements to plan for in subsequent releases of the application.
Building experiences that ensure employees receive important communication blasts all while seamlessly integrated into the digital workplace is a difficult challenge. It is a challenge that organizations need to embrace if they seek to empower their staff to be the most productive version of themselves.
We have been fortunate to develop deep expertise in creating employee digital experiences that lead to real change inorganizations. It is our passion.
If you are interested in working together to build this experience for your company, talk to us. We would love to help you with your journey.
